New car plate restrictions fuel Beijing black market

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Beijing's clampdown on new car registrations is creating a scramble for licence plates and fuelling a boom on the black market where prices have hit as high as $33,000 (£20,259), almost double the price of China's best-selling car, the Ford Focus.

Keen to curb pollution and traffic jams, China's capital city instituted a lottery in 2011, where it initially awarded plates to one in 10 people hoping to get a car. This year, Beijing will cut the allocation of new number plates by 40 percent to 150,000, meaning only one in 150 will get a plate.